Build / how this guide was made
THE GAP
I began with a gap between what a program website can describe and what a future student actually wants to understand: the places, people, rhythms, methods, and uncertainty of the work. I wanted applicants to experience something of the MDes before they arrived.
FIRST IDEA
The first version was a conventional applicant-facing guide—a clearer way to explain the program and collect its information. It gave me a starting structure, but it still kept the MDes at a distance, as if the program could be understood through descriptions alone.
THE TURN
The Woodhaven field session shifted the project. I saw that the place was not just a backdrop for the program; it shaped how we observed, collaborated, and encountered problems. The website needed to hold that experience, not simply point to it.
BUILDING THE ROUTE
I began bringing together 360° scenes, photographs, field recordings, video, project fragments, studio context, and cohort perspectives. Rapid prototypes and critique helped me work through navigation, hierarchy, sound, typography, and editability.
WHERE I AM NOW
That process became Into the Unknown: a navigable, browser-based field guide that moves from place to context, method, evidence, and people. It is not a finished account of the MDes; it is the first working version of an experience that can keep growing.
Right now, this is an immersive web experience that introduces the UBCO MDes through Woodhaven, campus, fieldwork, and the people working inside the program. The next versions should make that experience more complete, more explorable, and more alive over time.
01 / NOWThe current site gives future students a way to understand the MDes through its places, practices, people, and tools.
02 / NEXTA fuller 360° route will let people move through the field site, follow the path, listen to the sound, and look around for themselves.
03 / PEOPLEThe site can follow students while they are in the program—showing their projects, perspectives, and the work that happens between formal milestones.
04 / OVER TIMEAs the program changes, the website can keep changing with it, recording new questions, collaborations, places, and directions.
03 / THE NEXT LAYER
The current version is a working prototype. It describes the program and opens a first route into Woodhaven, but the future version should feel less like a page someone reads and more like a place someone can return to.
The current site brings together the MDes context, Woodhaven, the cohort, and the evidence gathered here.
A fuller 360° route can make Woodhaven something visitors explore, not only something they see in photographs.
New people, projects, conversations, and reflections can keep the site connected to the program as it develops.
WOODHAVEN FIELDWORK / WHERE THE NEXT VERSION BEGINSThis version makes the MDes more tangible before arrival. It gives visitors a way to start with place, move through the program, and see the people and work connected to it.
The next versions should let people return to Woodhaven, meet the cohort as it changes, and follow the questions the MDes keeps opening.
Take the current walk →